Figure 2.11 JeanBaptiste Greuze: Broken Eggs, oil on canvas, 73 × 94 cm, 1756. The Metropolitan
Museum of Art, Bequest of William K. Vanderbilt, 1920, Acc.No: 20.155.8.
Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, www.metmuseum.orgGenre paintings reflected, particularly from the midcentury, a new interest in the family. Mothers,
fathers, children, servants and governesses feature heavily as do social rituals such as marriage. The
demand for such scenes from contemporary domestic life has been linked with confidence in the values of
an increasingly important middle class or “bourgeoisie” (T.W. Gaehtgens, 2003, 79–80). Greuze’s genre
paintings often suggest the concerns of Enlightenment writers with the value of agriculture as well as with
the moral and social importance of the family. A French aristocracy increasingly aware of its own
unpopularity coveted such values and could acquire them through its choice of art.
One of the most marked developments in eighteenthcentury art was the fact that both buyers and critics
increasingly saw narrative genre painting (sometimes known at the time as the “low” genre) as a serious
rival to history painting, in its potential to move the public towards higher social and moral standards
(Wrigley, 1993, 293–298). Wright of Derby was among those who chose genre subjects but treated them
with the moral seriousness and grand chiaroscuro effects of Caravaggio and of another important
predecessor in genre painting, Georges de la Tour (1593–1652). Wright’s genre paintings often took the
format of the conversation piece and showed the prosperous middle classes engaged in elevating